Florala had the shots they wanted Friday night, but couldn’t get them to fall as the Wildcats fell at Pleasant Home 39-23 in area play.

The Wildcats only scored seven points in the first quarter and managed no points in the second, trailing 16-7 at halftime.

“Florala did everything they needed to, but they just missed the shots,” Pleasant Home coach Jerry Davis said. “They got what they wanted and controlled the tempo of the ball game. They were extremely hard to deal with. We were just extremely fortunate to get a win out of it.

“It’s a 16-point win, but it was a struggle,” he said.

Pleasant Home, on the other hand, already led 7-2 with 5:37 left in the first quarter. Then the Wildcats made a short run, scoring three points to narrow the Eagles’ lead to 7-5.

Each team scored two additional points in the first quarter to enter the second quarter at 9-7.

At the start of the third quarter, Pleasant Home broke away from Florala with a 6-2 run.

The Eagles added six more points to their total to lead 28-14 heading into the final quarter.

The Wildcats fell to 0-2 in area play.

“I thought our kids played real well defensively and gave a lot of effort,” Florala coach Brad Garner said. “We just had an awful night of shooting the basketball. We started to find the shots in the second half and then, when we found them, we couldn’t hit them.”

Pleasant Home improves to 11-5, 2-0 in Class 1A, Area 3, while Florala falls to 1-15, 0-2.

Davis said his team did not “handle” the game very well and will soon get back to work to get ready for next week.

“We’re going to try and figure out some way to go about it,” he said. “(Florala) got what they wanted and we did some things in spurts and that’s why we got ahead.”

Pleasant Home’s Cody Taylor led with 12 points and Colter Poole had six.

Florala’s Erik Vega led with eight points and Zac Fleming had seven.

Pleasant Home will play host to Zion Chapel on Monday night. Florala hosts McKenzie in area play Tuesday night.

Pleasant Home girls 60, Florala girls 55

Pleasant Home coach Kelley Garner described her team’s five-point edge over Florala as a “big win.”

“I thought we played much better (Friday night) than we did in the tournament down here,” Garner said. “Gina (Davis) and Kayla (Woods) both had a very good game for us. Considering how we’ve been playing I thought we did several good things.”

Both teams remained tight in scoring in the first quarter, but Pleasant Home had the slight advantage and outscored Florala, 9-5.

In the second quarter, the Lady Eagles tore away from the Lady Wildcats putting up five quick points with 6:46 on the clock.

The Lady Wildcats and Lady Eagles (6-8, 2-0) then scored 15 points apiece to go into halftime with Pleasant Home leading 29-20.

Florala picked up the tempo of the game in the third quarter to cut its deficit at three points. But Pleasant Home bounced back and led 48-39 at the end of the third quarter.

“We’ve still got to work on taking care of the basketball,” Garner said. “We scored 60 points against a pretty decent team. We’re excited to get the area win for sure.”

Despite winning, the Lady Eagles found themselves in foul trouble in the fourth to give Florala continued momentum. The Lady Wildcats were 4-of-9 at the free throw line in the fourth quarter.

Pleasant Home’s Gina Davis led with 16 points. Brentin Fuller and Kayla Woods each had 14 points.

Florala’s Brooke Hammonds led with 17 points and Paige Irwin had 15.